Penelope was staring out the window. He did not think she was seeing the landscape.

“I’m sorry,” he said, clumsily. “Surely-surely he’ll come around, in time.”

She shrugged. Then, with an effort, she turned and smiled at him. “Maybe so. I do recommend Miss Austen’s work. As Sir Walter wrote, her writing is astonishingly entertaining and lifelike. There are none of the constant swoons and desperate duels amidst Gothic ruins that one sees so often in the work of other novelists.”

“But they are novels,” Nev said with some surprise. “I never imagined they were supposed to be lifelike. That is not their purpose.”

“But they can be. They ought to be. Have you ever read a horrid novel?”

In fact, Nev ’s shameful fondness for the Minerva Press had been an open secret among his peers since Lower Shell at school. But he found he had not the heart to admit it, not when Penelope’s eyes were flashing scornfully. “I prefer poetry, myself,” he said, “but my sister is uncommonly fond of The Castle of Otranto.” Damn. He would have to inform Louisa of that as soon as possible, before she let slip that she generally read nothing but tales of knights and accounts of the doings of pirates, the bloodier the better. Oh, and Byron’s poems, but only because he was so handsome, and The Corsair was about a pirate, after all.

“Much may be forgiven the enthusiasm of youth, but I could never read that book without a shudder-not at the horror or pathos of the material, but at the woodenness of the prose, the improbability of the action, and the flatness of the characters! It and its ilk never taught us to know ourselves or our fellows better; it never inspired the spark of recognition that Miss Austen achieves so effortlessly. I never felt, while reading, that here was myself.”

“Perhaps so,” Nev said, stung, “but one doesn’t always wish to be oneself. Sometimes it can be pleasant to imagine oneself as a dark hero tormented by his sinful past, or a noble knight capable of saving a fainting female with one blow of his lance.”

She leaned forward, her cheeks flushed. Nev tried not to look at her bosom. “Do you have any notion how galling it is to see oneself everywhere portrayed as a fainthearted creature incapable of a single coherent speech or thought? Existing merely to be abused by one’s guardian or abducted by an unprincipled rake? I never fainted in my life, and I am quite as capable of self-exertion and rational thought as Sir Horace Walpole.”

Nev, prey to the lowering suspicion that his wife was a good deal more capable of self-exertion and rational thought than he was himself, turned the subject. “If you are so hot on the subject of Gothic ruins, you won’t be best pleased when you see Loweston.”

“Is there a ruin? Surely Mama would have mentioned that.”

“Oh, there’s a ruin, all right. A ruined corner of a medieval Ambrey fortress, on a hill near the house.”

She nodded sagely. “I expect most of the stones were carried away for reuse. Papa took Mama and me to Canterbury once, and all the old abbeys were nearly down to the foundations.”

“I’m afraid most of the stones were never there at all. It was built by my grandfather.”

She stared for a moment, then started to laugh. “Oh, dear.”

“You should have read Debrett’s more carefully. We haven’t been at Loweston long enough to have family ruins. If you were hoping we dated to the Conquest, you’ve been most cruelly deceived. The first earl was one of Charles the Second’s by-blows.”

“Alas, Mama only read me the parts about your Cambridge career and your grandfather’s art collection.”

He tsked.

She shook her head regretfully. “If only I had thought of it, I might have refused you and waited for an earl with a genuine ruin!”

He realized all at once how little she had sought to find out about him. She had not asked or investigated anything-she had accepted him on the spot, on an acquaintance of a few minutes. Would she have accepted any peer with full use of his limbs?

He had assumed he understood the nature of their bargain: he got her money, while she got his title and his position. After all, the idea of a Cit’s daughter not wishing to marry an earl had been utterly foreign to him. Everyone knew that was a self-made man’s goal in life. First he made his millions; then he bought a noble name for his grandchildren; then he sold his business and purchased a house in the country.

But she had never suggested, by word or sign, that she cared a straw for his title or his position. She could not even say that “there was something about a title” without blushing for her frivolity. Her parents had not pushed her into it; they had been against the match. If he read matters aright, this Edward, no doubt a “good, sensible man,” had wanted to marry her.

What then? Why had she married him?

And was she satisfied with her mysterious side of the deal, or did she regret her choice?

Seven

Penelope awoke in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, with unfamiliar sounds leaking in from outside. It took a moment to recall that she was married and at her husband’s seat of Loweston. Yes, now she remembered; the last hour, after they diverged from the highway, had been over terrible country roads. They had stumbled into her new home travelstained and weary, and Nev had simply taken her to “the countess’s room” and given her privacy. After Molly had undressed her, Penelope had gone straight to bed and fallen into a deep sleep. Too deep, evidently, for nerves-her stomach had not troubled her in the mornings since the wedding, for which she was profoundly grateful. Casting up her accounts in front of Nev would have been the worst possible start to a marriage.

Now she sat up and looked about her with interest. The room showed no signs of neglect, even in the bright sunlight streaming in through the enormous picture windows. The furnishings and wallpaper were modern and fashionable. The bureau was cluttered with an array of expensive perfume bottles, rouge jars, and silver brushes and combs that Penelope realized must be the dowager countess’s. She moved to the window-it was late morning, and the room was already close and hot. Opening the casement was not a large improvement and made the cheeping of birds even louder, but at least there was a warm breeze.

The air, though, was clearer and purer than in London. Penelope had forgotten how much. And the view was lovely-a rolling lawn with picturesque stands of trees, winding paths, and even a narrow, sparkling brook. It did not look in the least neglected or impoverished. For a mad moment, Penelope wondered if Nev could have been mistaken about his financial situation-if he had, in fact, married her for nothing.

A moment’s reflection convinced her of the folly of this notion. She did not know the countess well, nor had she ever met the late earl; but she was not surprised to learn that little economy had been practiced in the park itself. She would have to look over the books to find out where, exactly, it had been practiced-if at all.

Yes, Penelope decided, she would have a quick breakfast before asking the steward if she might see the books; it was the only thing here in the country that she still knew how to do. She called for Molly, and when she was dressed asked a passing maid to direct her to the breakfast room.

“Do you know where Lord Bedlow is?” she added.

“He’s in the steward’s room, my lady.”

Penelope decided breakfast could wait.

“Oh, Penelope!” Nev stood up so fast he nearly knocked the chair over. “Perhaps you can make some sense of this.”

She couldn’t help smiling at his obvious relief at seeing her. “I can certainly try.”

She looked about the room-and felt a pang of dismay. Her father would have fired on the spot any agent of his who kept his office in so sorry a state. Open ledgers were everywhere, as were dirty wineglasses, small piles of pipe ash, and broken pens. A bottle of ink had spilled in one corner and been left to dry where it lay.